


Among the Stars in No Man's Land

by Dontexpectmuchplease



Category: No Man's Sky (Video Game), Original Work
Genre: Amnesia, Deals with subjects of identity and survival, Gen, dealing with solving problems you no longer remember creating, will probably be as wordy as no man's sky has planets, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:33:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25000192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dontexpectmuchplease/pseuds/Dontexpectmuchplease
Summary: Questions fill her mind daily and each day they get harder to ignore and get further from answering."Who am I?", "Where am I?", "What am I?", "How did I get here?", "How do I get home?", "Do I even have a home?"With only the tools on her back and the robot on her shoulder she'll have to find the answers eventually.If she can survive that long, that is.
Kudos: 1





	Among the Stars in No Man's Land

**Author's Note:**

> So... let me explain the fandom tags. This work is inspired by and set in the world of No Man's Sky. However, I will scarcely use characters from the game and if they do show up will either only be there for a cameo or will have a different interactions then will show up in game making the writing of those character not canon. Being as this story focuses a lot on character interactions between each other and the world around them, I felt it wrong to say that the characters belonged to the game as I made their personalities and backgrounds in many cases. So as the story required the universe of No Man's Sky and my own original characters made for the world I felt it appropriate to add in the Original Work Fandom tag. However, if this bothers anyone please let me know and I will remove that particular fandom tag.   
> With that point stored away I felt so sad when I discovered that this game didn't have that many stories as the universe it built is a veritable playground for stories that aren't confined to any singular plot. So I wrote my own and I hope that you like my own take on it.

The little girl sits in the back of the hover-car on the way to her appointment. Wide curious eyes seek the people in the buildings flying by too fast. A glimpse of thousands of lives she will never live. Her arms wrap around the fuzzy toy past down through generations, a cuddly comfort portrayed by a now-extinct animal long gone due to the actions of her species. Through the speakers plays an audible reading of The Lorax.

“Mommy?” she asks, voice quiet.

“Yes, love?” her mother answers, soft as ever.

“Why does the Onceler keep cutting down trees? Can’t he see what he’s doing to the world?” The question hangs in the air for a moment as her mother looks at the signs for the exit. As the vehicle enters the off-ramp her mother answers.

“He does see what he’s doing dear he just can’t stop. He at this point is consumed by greed”. The mother pauses to stop at the red light switching her blinker on. The story continues

“...trees are what everyone needs” the deep voice rattles in the car. The woman’s eyes darken just a tad as she pulls into the parking lot and parks the car. She checks her watch and lets the car run for the remainder of the story. The little girl with no more moving scenes focuses more on the story.

“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not” the story ends just a second before the car’s purring engine stops and the scene is suddenly too quiet for the girl. Her mother’s eyes meet hers through the rear-view mirror.

“Anna my sweet I want you to listen to me right now okay?” she speaks her voice cutting through the silence like a knife. Anna nods. “We humans have tried for generations to fight against greed because we like the Oncler know what we do is wrong. But it is in our very nature to want more than we have even if what we have is enough. I want you to remember this story because it is important to care. But remember love, there is only so much one person can do against the destruction caused by billions. Do not run that beautiful mind of yours into the ground for problems you shouldn’t have needed to inherit”. Her mother unlocks the doors and steps out letting the 5-year-old unstrap herself. 

As Anna plants her feet on the asphalt holding her mother's hand as they traverse the grounds to the building, she can’t help but reflect that despite traveling all over the city she hadn’t seen a single tree.

* * *

... 

Trees. It’s the second thing she notices after the yellow sky. Trees that feel wrong although she can’t place why. They look like tall flowers with red coloring and large petaled leaves. The only things that actually suggests “tree” is the trunk with its rigged look and the sheer size of the damn thing. The camera on her shoulder continues to give her names of things she has no clue about being broken. She pushes past the sharp pain in her chest with every breath as her lungs inflate. She pushes herself to her feet slowly, automatically assessing the aches and pains in her body as she does so. Other than the stabbing in her ribs there is a squashed feeling in her left ankle, a ringing in her right ear and her head feels like it’s being slowly torn apart.

She’s snapped out of her analysis when the camera thing alerts her to the mining beam clipped to her side and the suits’ hazard protection being active. Whatever happened can wait until she gets to a safe place it seems. In the left corner of her helmet, she sees some stats. It reads:

Temp 56.4* C

Tox 16.6

Rad 1.4

And while she doesn’t know what all that means she can only assume it’s related to the hazard protection thing being active. She looks around only for everything around her including the rocks and the trees mentioned earlier coming up blank on what exactly they are. Somehow though her mind unburdened tells her the tree flower is carbon but it still feels lacking in information. Regardless that carbon is needed.

She takes out the mining beam and before she can even question how she knew to use it the tree was vaporized and chunks of red material flew into the vacuum that had opened on the pack on her back. Without question, she fell into an unknown routine shrugging the pack off and opening the container. The camera gladly highlights parts of her equipment needing repairs. And grabbing the carbon she begins applying it to the scanner the camera keeps flashing in the corner of her vision repeatedly saying “PRIORITY” Her hands fly across the damaged device packing carbon into the components and insulating the wires.

In seconds the device is functioning and the camera thing whirrs almost as if it sighing saying in a female voice that she doesn’t recognize “Device Repaired”. Checking what materials are needed for recharging she notices a need for sodium and metal plating. Which needs ferrite which she knows can be found in the rocks dotting the landscape. And within seconds she’s off using a jetpack function she didn’t even consciously realize she had, sprinting for the yellow flowers in the distance.

The heat is blazing and as she traverses rocky hills she can’t help but feel confused as to where she is or how she got here. All she can remember is waking with the scene stretching out before her. But as yet another storm warning blares she braces herself for the onslaught of rocks that will pelt the suit covering her.

“Right” she chastises herself “Survival now, questioning later”. In front of her lies a giant mound that she will not have the stamina to traverse on foot. She looks to the sides of her noticing the mound stretches for miles in both directions. The Jetpack will be the only way up for now. With how fast the fuel depletes and how large the mountain, it will most likely take hours to cross. Add the storm growing closer and it looks like she’s stuck in hazardous conditions for a while. As she gains altitude beginning the process as soon as she can. She looks over the slope as she does so, hoping for the sight of a crevasse. Even a small cave or indent could shelter her for a bit. Her sodium reserves already will only last for three more recharges, without the shelter, she wouldn’t last through the storm unless she spends the time solely searching for more yellow buds.

But, alas that appears to be exactly what she will have to do as the mound has not a single indent in her field of vision. She lands on the ridge and moves sideways in a weird sort of crustacean walk. She reaches a glowing yellow flower as the first foreign rock slams into her hand from the wind. It hurts, her brain registers but not as much as the headache or her ribs. “Plus” she muses idly “adrenaline is one hell of a drug”.

She repeats this process for a while. Long enough that the rotation of the planet has shifted towards night time. This means that while the radiation storm continues the temperature is one of the few things not adding to the list of stressors on the suit. She's about halfway up when she spots a blue flower. It catches her eye immediately. As she closes the distance by shifting slightly to the left upon her next takeoff she reaches the edge where the luminescent plant lies.

"Haven't seen one like this before" she mutters to herself. But as she'd like to leave it be all the other flowers she's encountered have ensured her survival so far. While she hasn't needed it yet who is to say she won't in a few seconds. So steeling herself with a roll of her shoulders she picks the flower out, root and stem.

"Fuel system overload" the camera blares through the suit, across her vision, and in her ears. In surprise, she hits the button igniting her thrusters, and she flys. Gaining altitude faster than usual she looks at the fuel reserves expecting them to deplete faster as well only to find the opposite. It's not moving at all.

"Uh, camera thing?" She questions, "Is the fuel gauge broken?" She waits a few moments as the lens blinks.

"Incorrect" it states. "Fuel reserves are being replenished as fast as they are being consumed". The voice is distinctly male this time she notes but immediately berates herself for useless commentary.

"So what you're saying is unlimited fuel". She says, thankful for her now rapid ascent due to a trigger finger.

"Correct" the voice confirms "However the source of the problem is currently being filtered out".

"What! No, I want unlimited fuel!" She nearly screams.

"Incorrect". The voice asserts.

"Don't tell me what I want!" She snips. "How can unlimited fuel be a problem" she states as the warnings for fuel overload disappeared. With the disappearance of the alarms, there is the reappearance of the decreasing bar on the fuel gauge. She is decidedly unhappy about this. As she's about to lash out at the talking lens on her shoulder it speaks again.

"I apologize for the inconvenience of Ms. Anna. The mechanisms inside the jetpack were about to start melting due to the excess of power. Between saving the function of the suit over answering you I failed to give a proper response to your query". As she lands she blinks, much like the lens had a few seconds ago. It will later strike her as ironic that she reacted just like the camera as she processed its words.

Thinking about the situation it makes sense there would be a drawback. She received an alert saying the system was overloaded. That means more fuel than the machine on her back could handle. Add her consistently using the jets and you have a recipe for melting components. She sighs as the realization comes to her.

"No. You made the right call" she admits.

"Warning Hazard Protection Low" the thing responds. Normally a dismissal of her words would annoy her but she doesn't have time for that as she shoves the pack off to grab some sodium and oxygen. She'll have time for emotions later. “Survive now,” she tells herself, quickly becoming a mantra in her head throughout this experience. At least she knows what the blue flower does now.

After another hour or so she finally finds herself atop the mound. The storm died off only a few minutes ago and the sun is beginning to break over the horizon. The sight is quite beautiful if she’s honest. The ground from this height looks like a sea of sand. There are even a few spots that glimmer from metal deposits in the scorching sun. Almost every life form from flora to the fauna is red in coloration, and if she squints she can imagine the thorny and toothed life as soft petals instead. Even more breathtaking is the sight of the stars beginning to softly fade into purples and pinks in the sky. The scenery takes her breath away for a moment and she’s left listening to the sound of the wind as her heartbeat slows for the first time since waking.

Once her heart stops thumping in her chest her eyes flit over the stretch of land. She blinks as the sun is reflected directly in her eyes from a certain spot. Her visor responds before she can even give it a command verbally and soon her vision is zooming in on the mini sun. It turns out to be a sparking scrap of metal. A crashed ship downed in some sort of incident. It's located on a plateau surrounded by foliage and a few sharp masses of blue to its right. The talking lens pinpoints the object on her compass but offers no commentary as to why. Shrugging more to herself than anything she sets off towards it. It’s as good a destination as she is going to get for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave a comment or critique. This is actually my first time really focusing on the detail of the world around my characters so if anybody has ideas on how to handle it I would be all ears.   
> Have a nice day and stay safe during this quarantine!


End file.
